I am a Bright

Reader would have undoubtedly observed the use of the article "a". Allow me to explain.

Most people around me and elsewhere know where I stand on God and religion. Let us look up some of the words that could be used to describe this opinion.

Atheism, disbelief, godlessness, impiety, infidelity, irreligion, irreverence, unbelief, nihilism, skepticism, heresy, iconoclasm.

As you can see this list mostly made up of negatives. "theism" which is good becomes "atheism" which is bad, "belief" (good) becomes "disbelief" (bad). In short these are derived words, negation of purportedly positive attributes.

This is not restricted to atheism alone. Fifty percent of world population suffers from the problem of derivation. I am referring to Woman. Not only is the word derived, according to the three monotheistic religions, the woman herself is derived from man.

Another example is the word Homosexual. The rebranding of sexual orientations to being gay and straight was one of the best things that happened. No longer are gay men dishonest or crooked (not straight) nor straight men necessarily unhappy with their lot in life (not gay). The two words are not opposed to each other and there is no historic tension.

About three years ago I set out to invent such a word. As I have constantly bemoaned the fact, I am just not original. Several notable persons had already been at this and this leads us to the Brights Movement. Here is wonderful description from Richard Dawkins

Gay is succinct, uplifting, positive: an "up" word, where homosexual is a down word, and queer, faggot and pooftah are insults. Those of us who subscribe to no religion; those of us whose view of the universe is natural rather than supernatural; those of us who rejoice in the real and scorn the false comfort of the unreal, we need a word of our own, a word like "gay". ... Like gay, it should be a noun hijacked from an adjective, with its original meaning changed but not too much. Like gay, it should be catchy: a potentially prolific meme. Like gay, it should be positive, warm, cheerful, bright.

In summary, I am a Bright. Are you bright too :-)

The early bird catches the worm

I was never one for getting up early in the morning. Sleep was my first love. Growing up, we were constantly told to get up early before sunrise and greet the rising sun. Indians even have a ritual called "Surya Namaskar". I did not like the rising sun. I cordially disliked it. I could not understand what people saw in it. It still looked round!

My parents not only liked rising early, they also associated early morning with studying. According to them if one studied in the morning, one learned better, retained more in memory; ergo good grades.

They would repeat the well know adage, the early bird catches the worm.

When I clarified that I was a vegetarian, I discovered that my father had strong knuckles! I still have a bump in my head as proof.

When your wife says - Jump

You would normally say, Why Honey?

Well I also used to ask such stupid questions for the first fifteen years of my marriage.

Needless to say, they were not very pretty years. Life was tough and miserable. I had to hear constantly how I just did not get it, how marriage was a team effort, how I constantly left things hanging, never followed instructions which even a child could follow, how other men would do all the chores in the house and outside the house, cook, clean, take care of the kids, read to them .....

I agree I am a little slow, I always make mistakes and sometimes more than once, but no one has ever said that I did not learn from them. I have reached a point in my education that I now can now follow the simple instructions really well. In fact I have actually improved to a point where I can take hints, also known in academic circles as non-verbal communications.

Let me give you a few examples.

The other day, I saw on top of my coffee mug, a few coupons for grocery items. Now someone who is a little slow would have simply thrown them as trash and finished their coffee. I understood that this was my wife way of saying hint hint (wink wink) nudge nudge.

Raag, you better go to the grocery store and purchase those items and used the coupons without fail, or else.

On an other occasion, when I woke up, I saw three laundry baskets blocking the way to the bathroom. I smiled at this subtle hint. I realized this was my wife's way of saying.

Fold these clothes you lazy bum.

After the morning shower I came downstairs and bumped my shin on something hard. I looked down and saw that the dishwasher door open. This non-verbal communication was getting too easy!

Dude, unload the clean dishes, load the dirty one, and start another load!

So now when my wife says "Jump", I say "How high honey".

Words of wisdom - From Manama

Last week when we were driving in India, Manama pointed to some dogs on the street and inquired about them. We told her that they were stray dogs. When she wanted to know what stray dogs were and we explained that these are animals without an owner and as a result they have to fend for themselves and that they do not have a home and have to look out for their own food; poor animals!

She thought for a second and asked us. "Rather than looking for food, why don't these dogs look for a master instead!"

Today as we were driving to the school, she pointed to a tree she usually points to and emphatically pronounced - That is not a weeping willow. The leaves on this tree is not the right shape and this tree is bent too low. I saw pictures of the tree in a book at school.

Now I do not know a banyan from a weeping willow but just to provoke her I said - It is!

Her answer had me in stitches

Trust me Dad, I know what a weeping willow looks like!